Sean Hayes: I Owed the LGBT Community an Apology For Coming Out Too Late

By Jase Peeples

Originally published on Advocate.com October 27 2013 4:06 PM ET

Out actor Sean Hayes opened up about the personal battles he fought with being a closeted actor during his time on the LGBT inclusive TV series Will and Grace in a new interview with the Los Angeles Times.

“I was so young. It made me go back in the closet [with the media] because I was so overwhelmed at 26 or 27. I didn't want the responsibility, I didn't know how to handle the responsibility of speaking for the gay community,” Hayes told the Los Angeles times. “I always felt like I owed them a huge apology for coming out too late. Some people in the gay community were very upset with me for not coming out on their terms. They don't stop to think about what's going on in somebody's personal life, and the struggles that they're having. It was all very scary. We got death threats. It was a really rough time for me, but I was also having the time of my life.”

However, Hayes hopes the new NBC series in which he stars as a single gay father, Sean Saves The World, will help further LGBT visibility on television in a new way, though he insists it isn’t the primary goal of the show. “I haven't seen this particular single father/gay parent on television,” Hayes said. “I want to make people laugh first, and that's it. If a byproduct of that is enlightening somebody to something they wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to, then great, but that's certainly not the agenda or the intent of the show.”